How children see the world and how they think and act at school is affected by their developmental differences, but also by the family cultures and values they bring to the classroom. A combination of a more diversified teacher population and a deeper valuing of all children’s home cultures by all teachers would go a long way toward ensuring a rich and equitable education for all children.

One change that would serve all children well would be a dramatic increase in the number of adults, particularly males, from non-Euro-American backgrounds joining the elementary teaching profession. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2000, the most recent year for which comparative data were available, 91% of the elementary teaching force was female, with only 9% male; 82.9% of elementary teachers were European American, 9.6% African American, and 5.5% Latino/Hispanic. At a time when an increasing percentage of students are from non-Euro-American cultures, the percentage of teachers who are from those cultures is declining. Recruitment and retention of new teachers from non-dominant cultures is one of the most difficult areas in elementary education in general. (National Center for Education Statistics 2001)

While politicians constantly tell us we must educate our future citizens for a global economy, the educational policies they support hypocritically contradict that hypothesis. While on the one hand now promoting immersion charter schools in Chinese and Arabic, proposed national legislation continues to demand English-only instruction for immigrants and native born children who speak Spanish, Portuguese and other languages, disallowing through practice the ability of children to become bi-literate in the language of their country of origin. Thus, many children, who grow and develop in a rich bi-lingual and developing bi-literate culture at home, are affectively limited entry into such a world in the public education system of America.

Test scores are lower and retention rates are higher in Latino-American sub-groups where Spanish is the primary language in the home, not because these children are developmentally behind their Anglo peers or because they are less intelligent, but because their schools are, in many cases, not providing time or curriculum approaches that honor and foster the value of bi-literacy on the world stage.

Are you doing something in your classroom or school to impact this situation? Love to have you post a response if you are!

Writing to the Latino community, Gloria Rodriquez says, “You should remind your child, as he grows older, that a person who is multilingual will be able to communicate with more people and be understood in different settings…When our young children become adults,” she notes, “they will comprise the largest ethnic group in our country. Therefore, if they are to become leaders, they will have to know Spanish in order to relate to and understand a greater number of people. Knowledge is power, and the persons who understand and are able to communicate with more people will have the power.” (Rodriquez, Gloria. Raising Nuestros Ninos: Bringing Up Latino Children in a Bicultural World. New York, NY. Fireside Books. 1999. pps. 147-148.)